


1979

by nice_girls_play



Category: British Comedy RPF, Real Person Fiction
Genre: Crossdressing, Friendship, Gen, RPS if you squint, again it's Rik and Ade, but it's Rik and Ade, technically hurt/comfort
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-06-04
Updated: 2016-06-04
Packaged: 2018-07-12 05:22:27
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,359
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7087015
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nice_girls_play/pseuds/nice_girls_play
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A writing interlude pre-Edinburgh Festival (and, for Adrian, pre-divorce).</p>
            </blockquote>





	1979

**Author's Note:**

> Disclaimer: This didn't happen. Presumably.

–  
The chorus of masculine whistles alerted him to the front door opening, but it was the sight of motorcycle boots under a maxi skirt that finally made Rik look up from his writing.

“Evening.” Leave it to Adrian to pop down at the table like nothing was amiss. And to prop one leg on the opposite chair, giving half the pub a look up his dress. His jacket and glasses were spotted with rain and long blond hair was matted against his neck and face.

“Did you get dressed in the dark again?” Rik pushed the second pint he’d ordered across the table, followed by a dubiously clean napkin. 

“Would have been clawing about on the lawn if I had,” Ade said, draining a third of the glass in one swallow. He picked up the napkin and began scrubbing his damp hair. "That’s where she dumped all of my clothes this morning.“

"Oh no.”

“I’ll give her this: I don’t think she knew it was going to rain.”

“Or that you’d grab some of her gear instead of doing the laundry, you lazy bastard,” he picked up the other napkin from the table and reached for his friend’s glasses, mopping the lenses dry.

“Not lazy. Just out of washing powder,” he looked Rik up and down, making his friend squirm a little under the scrutiny. “Swap?”

“‘You tired of the skirt already?”

“The skirt’s fine. The peasant blouse has been itching me for the past hour. Anna’s an A-cup. That should just about fit you.”

Rik swallowed his giggle around the rim of his glass. “Right. Let’s go then.”

“You first, you tosser. I don’t want to be seen walking into a public toilet with you.”

“Remember your jacket, then. You _really_ don’t want to be seen walking out in my shirt.”

–

After three drinks, two revisions, and a mountain of chips, honesty sneaked up on them.

"Was it because of me?” Rik asked. The blouse had an empire waist and ¾ sleeves, leaving a generous portion of his friend’s sternum and wrists on display. It took Ade a moment to reply.

“What? No. She likes _you_. She thinks I’m a prat.”

“Well, she’s a very smart girl.” 

“She is,” he nodded, taking another drink. “I haven’t exactly made things easy for her. The best I can do is give her an easy split once she decides that’s what she wants.”

“When’s that going to be?”

“Once we’re back from Edinburgh, probably. She’s about had it with me. I should tell her you look better in her blouse – might tip the scale early.”

“I quite like it. ‘Might keep it, actually.”

“You’ll have to – you’ve got chip grease on the sleeves.”

“Oh, fuck!”

–

“Are you ever going to stop groping yourself?” Ade asked, amusement edged with distress creeping into his voice.

“I can’t help it! It’s so pretty!” he answered, giggling, plucking at the lace edge of the blouse and letting it fall. “And shiny… Anna’s definitely not getting this back.”

“I’m sure if she saw it now, she’d tell you it was yours,” Ade squinted at the number of empty glasses on the table, patted down his jacket pockets, as it counting out the number of coins still left by feel. “We may want to move the writing session. Somewhere with more drink. That requires less cash.”

“My parents’ place?”

“It’s as good as a place as any,” he answered, handing his rucksack off to Rik. “All yours for the ride.”

Rik plucked at the zip, opening the pack. His nose wrinkled as the top opened and the smell of damp earth and rain-soaked cotton hit him. 

“'Thought you said you weren’t clawing about on the lawn?”

“Well, I didn’t know what she’d do to them once the rain let up, did I?”

“Lucky for you, we’ve got a washer-dryer in the basement.”

–

The catcalls on their exit were slightly louder than the ones Adrian had invoked with his entrance, with a tone that might have been threatening. Rik blew a kiss toward the bar just before slamming the front door. 

“You forgot to curtsy, darling,” Ade said, walking them towards his motorbike.

“You’re the one in the dress! You should bloody curtsy!” He struggled with the pack’s straps, arms brought up short by the blouse’s sleeves. “Ow… Which way do these go again?”

“Turn around,” he motioned for him to put his back to him, taking each of the pack’s straps and sliding Rik’s arms through.

“Thank you,” he sighed, smiling as Ade nodded. “Zip up your jacket, you madman. You’ll catch a cold!”

“Might be halfway there anyway,” he sniffed, zipping the jacket up to his throat. “Up you go.”

The seat wobbled as he mounted a leg on each side of the bike, stabilizing once the anchoring point of Ade’s additional weight was added.

“Hang on,” he cautioned, fidgeting in the seat. “I’ve got to tuck my skirt.”

Rik giggled, gripping his friend’s shoulders, smiling as Ade reached back to pull one arm around his middle.

“Okay, you know the rules: hold on tight, keep your head down, don’t fall off. If you fall off, I’ll circle back and drive over your face.”

“You won’t! You like my face. And you can’t get into my house without my front door key.”

“Your mum would let me in. She loves me,” he turned the key in the ignition. Well, she might not once she heard about the kind of morning Ade had...

Rik picked that moment to grab a fistful of blond hair and pull. Ade gave a hiccuping gasp and thumped the arm around his waist.

“Fuck off! No hair pulling, you git!”

“Just drive, you bastard.”

-

By the time they made it back to his house, the front door key Rik had lorded over Ade turned out to be missing from his pocket. Secreted somewhere in the torn lining of his jacket, waylaid by fairies, or, most likely, still on top of the bathroom cabinet of the second floor toilet. 

Rik being Rik and charmed by default, it made no difference. His mum answered on the second knock and pointed them both upstairs, unimpressed – and, remarkably, un-surprised -- by their matching frilly wardrobe. Ade wondered if it was the years as a drama teacher or the years of being Rik’s mother that had blunted Gillian to outrageous behavior. Possibly both. 

They changed quickly, swapping out wet clothes for dry, breezing through two more pages of notes and a shared can of Colt 45 before the drink and fatigue sank them both. Ade had moved the script over to the night table while Rik pulled the bedding up over them both. The susurrus of unconsciousness followed while Ade remained fast awake, staring up at the cracks in the ceiling plaster, haloed in silvery blue from the street lights outside the bedroom window. 

He wondered how many of his belongings he’d find broken, battered or destroyed outright once he returned home the next day. His mind had wandered to how much destruction he deserved when there was a light snort in the darkness, then a voice abruptly talking just a little too close to his ear.

“I can hear you thinking, you bastard. What’s wrong?” Rik asked.

“Nothing.” 

A slender finger in the dark reached out, tracing a cross on his forehead. Ade’s eyes crossed dizzily as he tracked it.

“What the fuck are you doing?” 

“Relieving your guilt. I am both God and Death and I absolve you of all your ills, both real and imagined. Now all the nasty things you’ve been thinking about yourself can fuck off and we can both get some sleep.” 

The hand that had traced the cross dropped down to cover his heart. Ade reached up to bat it away and somehow only made half the journey – settling atop Rik’s instead.

“Dear God, my partner’s fucking loony.” He pushed his glasses off with his other hand, flinging them somewhere into the darkness of his friend’s childhood bedroom and hoping he wouldn’t step on them when he woke up.

“Lucky you.” 

Sleep took Ade before he could say his piece to Death.

**Author's Note:**

> Rik calling himself both God and Death is more than just exhausted drunken ramblings. He played both roles in "Death on the Toilet," the short play he and Ade performed at the Edinburgh Festival.


End file.
